On October 11, 2007, Blackwater was sued by Iraqi civilians. Burke and CCR filed the groundbreaking lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., on behalf of five of the Iraqis killed at Nisour Square and two of the survivors wounded in the attack. The suit alleged that Blackwater’s actions amounted to “extra-judicial killing” and “war crimes.”169 It was filed in part under the Alien Tort Statute, which allows for litigation in U.S. courts for violations of fundamental human rights committed overseas.
“Blackwater created and fostered a culture of lawlessness amongst its employees, encouraging them to act in the company’s financial interests at the expense of innocent human life,” the suit charged. “This action seeks punitive damages in an amount sufficient to punish Erik Prince and his Blackwater companies for their repeated callous killing of innocents.” The suit was believed to be the first U.S. case brought by Iraqi civilians against a private “security” company.
It alleged that “Blackwater heavily markets the fact that it has never had any American official under its protection killed in Iraq” and “views its willingness to kill innocent people as a strategic advantage setting Blackwater apart and above other security companies.” Blackwater, the suit alleged, “was and is willing to kill innocent bystanders in order to preserve that ‘no death’ statistic for marketing purposes. Blackwater benefits financially from its willingness to kill innocent bystanders.”
Among the plaintiffs were the estates of the first victims, Ahmed Hathem al-Rubaie and his mother, Mahasin. “She was shot to death by Blackwater shooters as she cradled her dead son’s body, calling for help,” the suit alleged. The three other Iraqis named in the lawsuit who were killed on September 16—Oday Ismail Ibraheem, Himoud Saed Atban, and Usama Fadhil Abbass—had fourteen children among them, one an infant, according to Burke.
“The rule of law in every civilized nation in the world is that there is no legitimate reason to indiscriminately kill innocent bystanders,” Ratner said. “We believe that the acts of Blackwater at Nisour Square were deliberate, willful, intentional, wanton, malicious, and oppressive, and constitute war crimes. Blackwater is harming the United States by its repeated and consistent failure to act in accord with the law of war, the laws of the United States, and international law.”170
Among the allegations in the suit:
• Despite Blackwater’s claim that it is a defensive force, its “mobile armed forces” are “consistently referred to by Blackwater management and employees as ‘shooters.’”
• Blackwater should not have been at Nisour Square and defied orders not to go there. At the time of the shootings, “Blackwater shooters were not protecting any State Department official. The Blackwater shooters had already dropped off the official under its protection prior to arriving at Nisour Square.” The “Tactical Operations Center” (manned by both Blackwater and State Department personnel) “expressly directed the Blackwater shooters to stay with the official and refrain from leaving the secure area. Blackwater personnel were “obliged” to follow the directive and did not.
• “Blackwater routinely sends heavily-armed ‘shooters’ into the streets of Baghdad with the knowledge that some of those ‘shooters’ are chemically influenced by steroids and other judgment-altering substances. Reasonable discovery will establish that Blackwater knew that 25 percent or more of its ‘shooters’ were ingesting steroids or other judgment-altering substances, yet failed to take effective steps to stop the drug use. Reasonable discovery will establish that Blackwater did not conduct any drug-testing of its ‘shooters’ before sending them equipped with heavy weapons into the streets of Baghdad.” (Blackwater rejected the steroid allegations, saying its forces face drug tests during their application process and on a quarterly basis while working for the company. A spokesperson said, “Blackwater has very strict policies concerning drug use, and if anyone were known to be using illegal drugs, they would be fired immediately.”)
• Blackwater does not have “a valid contract” with the United States: “The Anti-Pinkerton Act… prohibits the United States from doing business with ‘[a]n individual employed by the Pinkerton Detective Agency, or similar organization.’ The legislative history of the Act makes it clear that a ‘similar organization’ means any mercenary or quasi-mercenary organization. Blackwater constitutes such a ‘similar organization’ and therefore lacks any valid contractual relationships with the United States.” (Ironically, a few months after the suit was filed, Blackwater vice president Martin Strong actually compared Blackwater’s work directly to Pinkerton’s. “Well, I can remember a time when Abraham Lincoln tried to get to his inaugural and he couldn’t find anybody to protect him except for the Pinkertons, who were a private-sector solution to protecting the new president of the United States,” he said. “This has been going on for a long, long time.”171)
Blackwater publicly declined to respond to the allegations in the suit, citing ongoing government investigations, but its spokesperson, Anne Tyrrell, said Blackwater “will defend itself vigorously.”172 Erik Prince, however, went on the attack—against the Iraqi victims’ lawyers. “The lawyers, the trial lawyers that filed this lawsuit are the same guys that defended the World Trade Center bombings in 1993, the blind sheikh, and defended a bunch of killers of FBI agents and other cops,” Prince said on CNN two days after the suit was filed. “So this is very much a politically motivated lawsuit, for media attention.”173 In fact, Prince was dead wrong. CCR did not represent “the blind sheikh,” nor did it “defend” the 1993 WTC bombing. But Prince’s spin was promptly adopted by his right-wing defenders and disseminated in the media.
A few days later, J. Michael Waller, vice president of the Center for Security Policy—a hard-line conservative think tank with deep connections to the Bush administration—wrote an op-ed in the New York Post called “Lawyers for Terror.”174 In it, he accused CCR and Michael Ratner of having “a four-decade record of aiding and abetting terrorists, spies and cop-killers” and said they “specialize in defending the enemies of American society.” Waller wrote, “As we await the facts to establish responsibility for the Sept. 16 tragedy in Nisour Square, we must demand answers to another question: Of the million-plus lawyers in the United States they could have chosen to sue Blackwater, how did ordinary Iraqis manage to pick the few who aid cop-killers and terrorists?”
Ratner said these claims were “transparent attempts to try and divert attention from Blackwater’s actions in Iraq and particularly its role in the Nisour killings. I don’t think character attacks fool anyone. Such attempts at character assassination are a smokescreen to cover up the killings. At trial the facts will speak for themselves and the truth will be revealed.”175
On December 19, 2007, CCR and Burke filed yet another lawsuit against Blackwater. This one stemmed from Blackwater’s alleged killing of five Iraqis on September 9 in Baghdad’s Watahba Square, one week before the Nisour Square killings. “Blackwater shooters shot, without justification, and killed five innocent civilians,” the suit alleged. “Numerous other innocent civilians were… injured in the incident.”176 Burke filed the case on behalf of the family of Ali Hussamaldeen Albazzaz. “This gentleman was a rug merchant, and he was gunned down for absolutely no reason, leaving behind a twenty-day-old baby daughter and family. It is again another instance in which Blackwater shooters shot first, asked questions later,” Burke alleged.177